From Vienna to Rome

Good morning Vienna! Pop Pop and I had an absolutely fantastic breakfast at our adorable hotel, and then we were off to Vienna Explorer to start our last full day together.

We arrived at the tour office and unloaded our bags. The workers were nice enough to allow us to keep our bags in their back room so we could leave in a taxi from there to the airport. We actually ended up bringing our tour guide to the car rental office with us to drop off our car, and then we took the tram to a starting point. It was a bit unconventional, but it worked out really well and saved us probably about 40 minutes.

We started the tour by passing the Vienna State Opera and walking to the Albertina museum, which is an art museum that is home to one of the largest print rooms in the world. Between the opera and museum, we saw the famous Hotel Sacher. We entered the Augustinian Church, which is next to the Habsburg palace, Hofburg. The double-headed eagle coat of arms that sits upon this palace represents the king and the emperor. We then passed through what used to be a moat bridge of the palace grounds. A beautiful place we stopped at was the Volksgarten, which is a gorgeous array of flowers on the Hofburg Palace grounds. Our last stops included a gorgeous auction house, St. Stephen’s Cathedral and Pestaule, which is the memorial statue for the victims of the Black Plague.

Vienna is a large, crowded and busy city; it reminded me of New York. Again, I was impressed that all this modern city could be mixed in with buildings that are hundreds of years old. I also loved the passion that the tour guide from yesterday had for the living style of the town. Apparently, Vienna is one of the safest, cleanest and happiest places to live. After the tour we thanked Vienna Explorer for being so accommodating and were on our way to the airport. We had an hour before the airline began checking in our flight, so Pop Pop and I ate an interesting meal that was basically a hotdog and a pretzel covered in sunflower seeds with a sweet mustard sauce.

After lunch, we checked in for our last flight before I began phase two of my trip abroad. Vueling airline has a separate check-in location across the street from the main terminal building, which I thought was quite odd. Luckily, everything went smoothly and we were off to Rome!